Hamill, Ford and Fisher back for next Star Wars movie

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know JJ Abrams is going to direct the next Star Wars movie, which is due to hit theaters in 2015.

Since it was officially announced that there would be more Star Wars movies in the future, the rumors have been flying fast and furious about who will be returning to the series.

Composer John Williams definitely said he wants to come back, Samuel Jackson said he wants to return as well, and the fans would love Drew Struzan to come out of retirement and design the ad campaign. The latest rumor has been that the original Star Wars trio of Mark Hamilll, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher would be coming back. Well, now it’s official straight from George Lucas himself, the OG three will indeed be coming back for the next Star Wars film.

As Vulture tells us, Lucas announced that the three original players are in the "final stages of negotiation" to return. Lucas was quoted by Bloomberg Businessweek, where he also said, "We had already signed Mark and Carrie and Harrison – or we were pretty much in the final stages of negotiation. So I called them to say, ‘Look, this is what’s going on.’"

Then Lucas stopped himself, and said, "Maybe I’m not supposed to say that. I think they want to announce that with some big whoop-de-do, but we were negotiating with them." He added, "I won’t say whether the negotiations were successful or not."

Har, har, har, very funny George. We all know that George can announce what he wants, whenever he wants, and unless there’s some huge disturbance in the force, we get the feeling this is pretty much a done deal. Carrie Fisher did the same thing actually, saying she was coming back, then the next day her publicist claiming she was joking, so maybe Lucas is trying to be funny too.

So there you go. With the return of the original three, the Star Wars saga will come full circle, and make the story more integrated and intertwined than ever. While this isn’t a 100% official / completely hammered out / done deal announcement, this is definitely as close as it gets.